Nosh: World Nutella Day: Tartufini!

World Nutella Day: Tartufini!

I grew up in the 70s. I carried my lunch to school in a Donnie and Marie lunchbox, and then eventually in a brown paper bag. Maybe once a month there was a day you could buy rubbery squares of pizza or hot dogs in the cafeteria but 99 percent of the time everyone brought lunch from home. Most of the kids had the standard American lunch: an apple, peanut butter&jelly or bologna on white bread, oreos, a thermos of milk. Very rarely did anyone unpack anything odder than turkey on white bread with slices of american cheese...well....anyone except me. My parents were from Sicily. I ate la pasta while other kids had "noodles" with Prego. My lunches were unpredictable ... in my brown paper bag might be sesame-seed rolls with slices of meatballs, or sausage and peppers, or salami (real salami) and provolone. Or, sometimes...there were just slabs of italian bread slathered with Nutella. Back then this was really hard to explain -- American kids were not eating chocolate on their sandwiches yet. I was embarrassed - kids said my lunch was weird - but now I realize how lucky I was. My mom gave me chocolate for lunch.

Those days are long (looong) gone....and Nutella is no longer avant-garde in the lunchbox. But I like to think of myself and my siblings as pioneers. I like having those memories.

Back to present day and new Nutella memories: when I was in Sicily over Christmas, where Nutella is a staple, my cousin Chiara invited some friends over to make sweets for their holiday "game nights". For World Nutella Day, I'm happy to share their creation with you.

These sweets, called tartufini, require minimal effort but are fun to make and taste really good. She sent me the recipe and I'll let her describe how to make them in her own cute way:

"The recipe is very simple, we have no measures of the ingredients, it's up to you...if you want them to be softer you just have to put less cookies, if you want them to be crunchy, just put a lot :-)

What you need is:
- a "bottle" of Nutella
- the plainest biscuits (cookies) you can find
- some chocolate (we love white but you can put any kind)

You have to break all the biscuits until they become like a powder, or even a little bit bigger (like the sand), it depends on how you like them, and then mix them with the nutella with your hands.

When they're well mixed you can start making little balls and don't forget to put in the middle of each of them a little cube of chocolate! They have to stay in the fridge at least for a couple of hours before you eat them, otherwise they're too soft and you can't really appreciate them!"

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